CORRESPONDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 51, 29 February 1904, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

1 NO-LICENSE IN THE CLUTHA. j I (To the Editor.) j Sir, —My attention having been called to some utterances anent the working and elleet of no-license in the Clutlia, i wish to say a few words in defence of the honour, sobriety and general morality of my fellow-townsmen. 1 have no '• wish, time or inclination to enter inio a i controversy with ivLr Boreham, whose j attempts to discredit No-iicense in the ; Clutha have led him to make such wild, ; foolish and Delated statements. Mr : Boreham's charges have been disproved again and again, at least most oi them. There are a few, however, that appear to have been recently manufactured. These I wish to refute. I will quote Mr Boreham's own words: "In Clutha they j found that crime had increased under ! no-license." Yet what are the facts? ' Why, the very opposite of this. Some lew ,, months ago. a Balclutha constable stated when leaving the district that crime had decreased 50 per cent., and quoted the statistics Irom the records to prove his assertion. 1 have in my possession the convictions for drunkenness in Clutha last year. Whilst the whole district showed a comparative immunity from this vice, Balclutha itself only had one conviction, and that man had been taken off the train as it came from Dunedin. '"Sly grog shops were now out of fashion in CluLiia.." That is the most truthful sentence yet uttered by Mr Boreham. His alternative is ingenious, but. to those of us who know the facts it is simply absurd. Mr Boreham speaks , of picnics; in Balclutha, where the girls | walk up and down by themselves, because the men were intoxicated. 1 have been two years in Balclutha and beve never seen a drunken man at a picnic, al- ' though I have attended nearly all the public functions of that kind. The general morality of thte people is of a very high order, notwithstanding Mr Boreham's marvellous figures—which no sane man believes. Indeed I should never have troubled to contradict Mr Bore- j ham, knowing as I do his weakness for I the use of the hyperbole, but for many of my friends, who consider that such calumny ought not to be allowed to go unrefuted. 1 have no intention of trespassing further upon your valuable space, for Mr. Boreham's statements carry their condemnation upon their sur- ' face. Let mc merely add in conclusion that the best and most unanswerable | argument in my opinion in favour of Clutha's commercial and moral condition is the fact that our nearest neighbours, I Bruce and Mataura, having seen what benefits we have derived from no-license in the Clutha, have followed our example. To a person of ordinary intelligence comment is needless. One more glaring misrepresentation ( and I have done. Mr. Boreham says: "When no-license was carried in Clutha there was only one policeman, now there were two." If he means the whole of Clutha his figures are ridiculous; if he means the borough of Balclutha, they are a stupid fabrication. We have now, as we have had since no-license was carried, one policeman, and he never complains of overwork. This is a specimen of Mr. Boreham's misrepresentation of facts.—l am, etc., A. MITCHELL. Auckland, February 26, 1904.